Word.ws English Dictionary

took one's medicine

took one's medicine is the simple past of take one's medicine.

Meaning of take one's medicine

Verb

take one's medicine (third-person singular simple present takes one's medicine, present participle taking one's medicine, simple past took one's medicine, past participle taken one's medicine)

  1. (idiomatic, informal) To endure an unpleasant obligation, especially a punishment.
    • Your resistance to our class won't do you any good . If you'll come out and take your medicine like men, all right; but if you resist it will go that much harder with you.1910, Arthur M. Winfield, The Rover Boys at College
  2. Used other than figuratively or idiomatically: see take, medicine.

Questions about took one's medicine

What is took one's medicine the simple past of?
Took one's medicine is the simple past of take one's medicine.

Words near took one's medicine in the dictionary

  1. took one's hat off to
  2. took one's hook
  3. took one's kit off
  4. took one's leave
  5. took one's life in one's hands
  6. took one's medicine
  7. took one's own hide to market
  8. took one's own life
  9. took one's pick
  10. took one's place
  11. took one's rise

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: took one's medicine (page history and authors); take one's medicine (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

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